Book Review: Governing delinquency through freedom: Control, rehabilitation and desistance by G. Bugnon

• Author: Julienne Weegels
• DOI: 10.1177/10575677211029371
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

depends a lot on where youwould do time. For example, if the prison is in a Nordiccountry (Denmark,

Finland, Iceland, Norway, or Sweden), expect a soft landing. Nordic prisons are not crowded and

employ one staff member for every prisoner. Many prisons are equipped with cooking facilities and tele-

vision, which inmates can use any time during the day. Inmates in a prison in Norway have access to a

gym and can take spinning classes. In this context, inmates are generally at ease. By contrast, prisons in

Bolivia and Brazil are vastly overcrowded and understaffed. The ventilation, food, and health care are

horrible. In the United States, the typical prison for males is large, crowded, and dominated by gangs.

U.S. women’s prisons, though, have smaller populations. Life is organized around groups of inmates

who form f‌ictive families. Gangs are unlikely to play much of a role.

David Skarbek’s book The Puzzle of Prison Order is a path-breaking effort to document and

explain this variation around the world. Despite their differences, he argues that all prisons must

face the task of creating order. This can be done in four ways, depending on who is the principal

actor: prison off‌icials or inmates. First, the effort to create order may be a f‌lop. Neither inmates

nor prison off‌icials get very far. Expect poor conditions, if not a war of all against all. Second,

inmates themselves can create order. This will tend to occur when prisons are large and social

norms are diff‌icult to enforce. Expect order, but also the domination of some inmates over others.

Third, prison off‌icials can create order according to their vision of what prisons should look like.

Because the conditions may be good, as in the Norwegian prisons, inmate def‌iance may be low

and compliance high. Fourth, inmates and prison off‌icials may share governance. This may be a bal-

ancing act, with the outcome depending on the skill on both sides of the fulcrum.

The main idea, then, is that how, and by whom, a prison is governed will determine the quality of

inmate life. But other factors matter too. At the top of the list is the amount of resources expended per

inmate. There may also exist an interaction effect: Off‌icials can govern better when they have ample

resources to expend. On the other hand, a dollar (or a Norwegian Kroner) not spent on prisons can be

invested in another worthy cause or returned to the taxpayer. We want good prisons, but they may

need to wait for their f‌iscal turn. Further, Skarbek f‌inds that prison populations and the location of the

prison relative to inmates’home communities are also important factors. For example, the task of

managing English prisons is eased because they are located close to prisoners’communities and gen-

erally have small populations. By contrast, California prisons for men are densely populated and

distant from home communities; as a result, the level of order suffers.

In general, David Skarbek has written a critical and highly engaging book, offering a new perspec-

tive on creating prison order. It breaks new territory, both because of its analytic contributions and

because of its comparative focus. We learn that prisons can be governed in different ways, and these

differences have consequences for order behind bars. However, what about crime reduction? More

prison, less crime? Skarbek leaves this for another time. Many would benef‌it from a close read of the

Puzzle of Prison Order. In particular, corrections off‌icials and policy makers will gain insights that

can help inform policy decisions. The book contributes to academic debates in political science over

creating order and provides a model for the constructing of social theory using qualitative, historical

data. Finally, students, graduate and undergraduate alike, would benef‌it from seeing what a scholar

with care and commitment can do to explain old things in new ways.

Bugnon, G. (2021).

Governing delinquency through freedom: Control, rehabilitation and desistance. Routledge. p. 270.

ISBN: 9780429466175. Open access at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429466175

Reviewed by: Julienne Weegels, Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of

Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

DOI: 10.1177/10575677211029371

118 International Criminal Justice Review 32(1)